Volunteers grow fresh produce at Manassas Senior Center garden

Local volunteers are growing an organic garden at the Manassas Senior Center full of life and color.

According to a release, not only is the garden nice to look at, but it’s also got other uses: Volunteer Len Postman plants and oversees the garden and when the grown vegetables are ready, Postman picks them and gives them to the center’s kitcen.

“What’s lovely about it is that it’s all organic. It’s approved by the Health Department. So, we can actually use the produce that we grow to serve to our seniors that come to visit and also to our seniors that we have for our Meals on Wheels program,” stated the Manassas Senior Center’s lead cook Bonnie Swank in a release.

Postman works with gardening helps to cultivate lettuce, chard, green beans, peppers, squash, and several other types of vegetables in the garden.

“They love it. When they use the vegetables to make a meal, they’ll say, ‘I knew it came from the garden,” stated Postman about individuals at the center that eat meals prepared with the produce.

More on the garden, from a release:

Postman said the vegetables ripen “in their season,” so the garden produces vegetables from spring to fall.

Swank said that the garden sometimes produces more than the kitchen can use. She recently prepared roasted turnips from the garden with the greens that were leftover. “The greens we actually put out for people to take home.”

Swank said she thinks it’s fortunate for the kitchen at the senior center to have a garden out back “We’re able to bring fresh produce to them,” she said of the senior center patrons.

Imogene Flowers, who regularly visits the senior center, said she likes it when the vegetables make it into the center’s meals. “They’re delicious – nice and fresh.”